This Week's Nutrition Tip

Does Fruit Have Too Much Sugar?

 There may be a rumor going around that fruit is bad for you!  First of all, no food is really “bad for you;” there are just better and healthier choices.  There are two forms of sugar that we eat; the naturally occurring sugars in fruit and dairy products and the added sugars, like white, brown, and powdered sugar and corn syrup, that are found in many processed foods.  The problem is the new food label lumps all sugars together including milk sugar (lactose) and fruit sugar (fructose).  If this is confusing, you can read the ingredients and learn to differentiate natural sugars and added sugars.  Try to eat foods that are high in nutrients as oppose to foods with sugar and no nutrients.  For example, yogurt or smoothies can be high in sugar, but it has nutrients in it from the milk or fruit food groups. 

The flipside of this is people are substituting sugar for artificial sweeteners. Aspartame, sugar alcohols (like sorbital),and other sweeteners have been shown to cause various health problems in the long-term.

There are various reasons why sugar can be unhealthy; besides the fact that sugar adds empty calories to foods, sugar can affect your mood and performance. 

In summary, try to eat as many natural foods vs. processed foods as you can.  Try to control portion sizes of all types of foods and have sugar and artificial sweeteners in low to moderate amounts.